But the utmost I could tell him about my father was nothing to the
tales he told me about his grandfather, the navy captain.
CHAPTER V.
THE NAVY CAPTAIN--SEVEN PARROTS IN A FUCHSIA TREE--THE HARBOUR LION
AND THE SILVER CHAIN--THE LEGLESS GIANTS--DOWN BELOW--JOHNSON'S WHARF.
The Johnsons were very fond of their father, he was such a good, kind
man; but I think they would have been glad if he had had a profession
instead of being a canal-carrier, and I am sure it pleased them to
think that Mrs. Johnson's father had been a navy captain, and that his
portrait--uniform and all--hung over the horsehair sofa in the
dining-room, near the window where the yellow roses used to come in.
If I could get the room to myself, I used to kneel on the sofa, on one
of the bolsters, and gaze at the faded little picture till I lost my
balance on the slippery horsehair from the intensity of my interest in
the hero of Johnson Minor's tales. Every time, I think, I expected to
see some change in the expression of the captain's red face, adapting
it better to what, by his grandson's account, his character must have
been. It seemed so odd he should look so wooden after having seen so
much.
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